Southwest

Just for the heck of it, I wanted to check airfare for our trip over Christmas and New Years.

The only way it would let me book direct was flying from Atlanta through Houston and that included an overnight layover on the return for the same price of our tickets on American through Miami in First/Business class on all legs (which was cheaper than economy when we booked in February).
When trying to "force" a connection in Orlando, I received a message, "The specific itinerary that you’re attempting to book cannot be completed in a single transaction online. Please try again by booking the domestic and international portions of your trip separately, or contact us for further assistance ..."
It would allow me to book Atlanta to Orlando and then Orlando to Aruba separately for a savings of $600 over American.

Just for the heck of it, I wanted to check airfare for our trip over Christmas and New Years.

The only way it would let me book direct was flying from Atlanta through Houston and that included an overnight layover on the return for the same price of our tickets on American through Miami in First/Business class on all legs (which was cheaper than economy when we booked in February).
When trying to "force" a connection in Orlando, I received a message, "The specific itinerary that you’re attempting to book cannot be completed in a single transaction online. Please try again by booking the domestic and international portions of your trip separately, or contact us for further assistance ..."
It would allow me to book Atlanta to Orlando and then Orlando to Aruba separately for a savings of $600 over American.

My question, is this normal for Southwest?

It is very normal for us. We live in Oklahoma and there are a lot of destinations that we can not access without either a layover or booking separately. It is because of the connections we can not make on the flights. Getting to MCO, ATL, DFW, FLL, Los Angles and San Diego is easy but some of the other airports not so much. If we need to connect through these cities it can be impossible. When SW bought AirTran we thought great, we can now use our FF miles to go to Aruba. It took them 2 years to change over all the flights so no go for that time period. Then they actually had a connecting flight from here to Houston to Aruba. That lasted for 3 months, Jan, Feb and March. Now we can not get there from here again.

We were doing great with AirTran, flying from Richmond, Va., connecting in Atlanta. Now the only flight we can get on Southwest to Aruba connects in Orlando, and doesn't allow us enough connection time. We've flown United many times, connecting in Dulles, which is north of us, but not too far. Since their merger, United has cut the number of Aruba flights from Dulles, and most now connect in Newark, which is very far north of us. We've also flown US Air through Charlotte several times. Now we are watching to see if their Charlotte/Aruba flight is going to impacted since their merger. Even if they keep the Charlotte flight, but change the flight time, we still could be impacted if we don't have a reasonable time to connect. All of these mergers are making it difficult. Right now the best flight for us is Delta.

We arenot fans of flying north to go south especially in the winter. We've had good experiences with customer serivice on SWA but we can fly direct out of Baltimore. I wouldn't like flying them with a connection because the boarding/seating process makes me anxious.

Hatteras, our friends did the Delta flight out of Richmond and actually got a great price for their hotel using Delta vacations. You may want to check that, unless you own a timeshare of course.

I booked one way from Aruba to Dallas yesterday for January 2nd. That flight is ridiculously priced on AA. Got $471 on SW. I used FF miles on AA getting to Aruba on Decrmber 23rd. So basically I spent less than $2000 for a family of 4 to get to Aruba at one of the priciest times of the year to fly there. Feel pretty good about my choice!

Hi all. Sorry I haven't been around the last couple weeks. I was doing double duty at work doing my job and covering for a girl who had surgery, and I'm obsessing about planning my son's graduation party.

I had written on my calendar that SW opened flights through the beginning of January on May 14. I finally got an opportunity this morning to check out various fares. It appears I can book SW to get there, but there are no return flights available. That's odd; what do they do with all the planes that take people there. Do they fly back empty?

When trying to book a RT, I got a message that there were no flights from CAK to AUA on my specific dates, but when I put in a one-way request, I got results. And actually, a couple of days it was only $209, but still no return availablility. Now, if I can find an inexpensive return flight, we'd be in business.

(Well, actually I'm dreaming. Remember that grad party I mentioned. That means college tuition is due in the fall, now for 2 kids)